Newbie on a budget - Rate my GPU / CPU idea?

Topaz Video General
1

Hi all,

New to Topaz AI and am looking to upscale some football DVDs to 1080p.

They are 90’s football season reviews that were remastered to DVD 15 years or so ago.

I’m searching for used hardware and have found an option that offers:

MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB OC GPU

Intel I5-11400F (6 cores / 12 threads) (althought the motherboard could also accept an i9-11900K)

Could I get any views on whether this setup would be reasonable? - or any suggestions for other budget combos that might provide better results?

Thank You!

2

As you aim an Intel CPU (bad idea), and not AMD one

The main focus you should have is DDR5. TVAI is dependent on RAM latency, and considering current market prices, this should be your budget priority.

For DVDs, Starlight is the way to go. But 8GB just won’t cut it.

3

Thanks for the reply.

based on this I’m guessing:

An AMD Ryzen CPU would be better

A CPU / MDB that supports DDR5 is needed

A GPU with 10GB or more of memory is needed

I will look for some options for an RTX 3080 Ti 12GB & Ryzen 5600 or similar

4

AMD Ryzen is better for Topaz.

I have Core I7-10700 and Ryzen 7 5700x, while Intel has higher max frequency, AMD is more energy efficient and faster.

If you plan on building future-proof PC, opt for 16Gb VRAM NVIDIA card.

Your best option would be 5070TI, of course.

5

Thank you Urix

6

If you want to use Starlight (which very likely would be the overall by far best model for your needs but also needs A LOT of time/patience) and are on a budget the 5070 with 12 GB is about the minimum for the GPU. If you can spend the extra bucks, go for the 5070TI/16GB.

The CPU doesn’t really matter much for Starlight, so a middle-class one is sufficient here. AMD/Intel does not really matter that much, either - so take the one you can get the cheapest combo with the 5070.

Edit: since you’re going for used hw the 4070(TI) would be a viable option as well. But in any case the gfx card should have at least 12GB VRAM.

And P.S.: RAM latency really only comes into account when using the older „traditional“ models at high resolutions, e.g. upscaling 1080p to 4k.

That money definitely is better spent on a better GPU.

3 Likes
7

Hi everyone,

I am back and have got my build completed - took the advice and I have:

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D 4.3 GHz 16-Core Processor

ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX™ 5070 Ti 16GB GDDR7 OC Edition

I’m ready to get started - have been reading through some threads - am I correct in thinking I should be loading my video and using the “Starlight” function rather than using the Presets (FHD) and default AI model (Proteus)?

Thanks!